The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-04
PAUL SAFE IN A BASKET.
TALMAGE TELLS THE STORY OF
THE FAMOUS ESCAPE.

Slenderness of the Tenure on Which
Great Results Hang-No Insignif1-
canoes in Our es-Unrecognized
and Unrecorded Services -Acknowl-
edgements to the Old Folks at Home.
MARTHA's VINEYARD, MASS, July s.
Many hundreds of Brooklyn Tabernacle peo-
pie and their friends have made pilgrimage
to this place. 1t is one point in an excursion
of six days. taking in Newport, Nantucket
and this island. The Rev. T. Dewitt
Talmage, d. D., preached here this morn
ing in the great Camp-meeting Tabernacle.
Thousands Of people were present from all
parts of New England. The music was
conducted by a band. DR.. Talmage's text
was: Through window in basket was
let down by the wall."-II. Cor, xi. 33. He
said:
Sermons on Paul in Jail, Paul on Mars
Hill, Paul in the shipwreck, Paul before the
Sanhedrim, Paul before Felix are plentiful,
but in my text we have Paul in basket
Damascus is city of white and glisten-
ing architecture sometimes called "the eye
of the East" sometimes called "a pearl sur
rounded by emeralds," at one time distin-
guished for swords of the best material
called Damascus blades, and upholstery of
richest fabric called damasks. A horseman
by the name of Saul, riding toward this
city, had been thrown from the saddle. The
horse had dropped under flash from the
sky, which at the same time was so bright
- blinded the rider for many days, and
think, SO permanently injured his eyesight
that this defect of vision became the thorn
in the flesh he afterward speaks of. He
started for Damascus to butcher Christians,
but after that hard fall from his horse he
was changed man and preached Christ in
Damascus till the city was shaken to its
foundation.
The Mayor gives authority for his arrest,
and the popular cry is: xiii himl Kill
him." The city is surrounded by high
wall, and the gates are watched by the
police lest the Cicilian preacher escape
Many of the houses are built ON the wall
and their balconies projected clear over and
hovered above the gardens outside. 1t was
customary to lower baskets out of these
balconies and pull up fruits and flowers from
the gardens. To this day visitors at the
monastery of Mount Sinai are lifted and let
down in baskets. Detectives prowled
around from house to house looking for
Paul, but his friends hid him, now i'll one
place, now i'll another He is no coward, as
fifty incidents in his life demonstrate. But
he feels his work is not done yet, and so he
hereP the foaming mob shout at one house
door. SIS that fanatic heref' the police
shout at another house door. Sometimes
on the street incognito he passes through
a crowd of clinched fists and some
times he secretes himself on the
house-to At last the infuriate populace
get on sure track of him. They have posi-
tive evidence that he is in the house Of one
of the Christians, the balcony of whose home
reaches over the wall Here he is! Here
he isl" The vociferation and blasphemy
and bowling of the pursuers are at the front
door They break in. Fetch out that gos-
pelizer, and let us hang his head on the city
gate. Where is hes" The emergency was
terrible. Providentially there was a good
stout basket in the house. Pauls friends
fasten a rope to the basket Paul steps into
it. The basket is lifted to the edge of the
balcony on the wall, and then while Paul
holds on to the rope with both hands his
friends lower away, carefully and eau
tiously, slowly but surely, further down and
further down, until the BASKET strikes the
earth and the apos tie steps out and afoot,
and alone starts on that famous missionary
tour, the story of which has astonished earth
and heaven. Appropriate entry in Pauls
diary of travels: "Through q window in a
basket was let down by the wall"
Observe, first on what a slender tenure
great results hang. The ropemaker who
twisted that cord fastened TO that lowering
basket never knew how much would depend
upon the strength of 1t. How if it had been
broken and the apostles life had been
dashed out, what would have become of the
Christian church2 All that magnificent
missionary work i'll Pamphilia, Cappadocia,
Galatia, Macedonia, would never have been
accomplished. All his writings that make
up 50 Indispensable and enchanting part
of the New Testament would never have
been written. The story of resurrection
would never have been so gloriously told as
he told IL. That example of heroic and
triumphant endurance at Philippi, In the
Mediterranean Euroclydon, under flagella-
ton and at his beheading would not have
kindled the courage of ten thousand martyr
dorns. But that rope holding that basket,
how much depended on it! SO again and
again great results have hung on what
seemed slender circumstances.
Did ever ship Of many thousand tons,
crossing the sea, have such important pas
senger as had once basket of leaves, from
taffrail to stern only three or four feet,
the vessel made waterproof by a coat Of
bitumen, and floating on tue Nile with the
infant law-giver of the Jews on board
What if some crocodile should crunch It'll
What il some of the cattle wading in for n
drink should sink il; Vessels of war some
times carry forty guns looking through the
port holes, ready to open battle. But that
tiny craft on the Nile seems to be armed
with all the guns of thunder that bonn
barded Sinai at the law-giying. On how
fragile craft sailed how much Of historical
importance!
The parsonage at Epworth, England, is
on fire in the night, and the father rushed
through the hallway for the rescue Of his
children. Seven children are out and safe
on the ground, but one remains in the con
suming building. That one wakes and find
ing his bed on FIRE and the building crum-
bling, comes TO the window, and two peas
ants make ladder of their bodies, one peas
ant standing on the shoulder of the other,
and down the human ladder the boy de
scends--John Wesley. II you would know
how much depended on that ladder of peas
ants ask the millions Of Methodists ON both
sides OF the sea- Ask their mission stations
all round the world. Ask their hundreds
of thousands already assembled TO join their
founder, who would have persisted but for
the living stairs Of peasants shoulders.
An English ship stopped at Pitcairn Island,
and right in the midst of surrounding can
nibalism and squalor the passengers discov-
cred a Christian colony of churches and
schools and beautiful homes and highest
style of religion and civilization. For fifty
years no missionary and no Christian infiu-
ence had landed there. Why this oasis Of
light amid a desert Of heathendon. Sixty
years before, a ship bad met disaster, and
one of the sailors, unable TO save anything
L I. l. IL a.